Fallen Angels Read Online Free Page A

gloves, Angel saw a deck of cards.
    “My uncle plays poker. You a poker player, Miss Mock?” Angel asked.
    The woman reached and closed the bag with a snap. “Your uncle. You mean your Uncle Henry Ford, the millionaire?”
    Angel tugged her right earlobe.
    “You don't have to keep up the front on my account. You kids orphans or some such, I figure. You really got family in Nazareth or you just looking for the next meal ticket?” Winifred's cigarette pulsed in Morse code beats when she spoke.
    “We're not orphans.” Willie sat up from the rear seat. His annoyance blustered out of him and he grabbed the back of the seat to pull himself forward.
    “Fine, fine. You're not orphans,” said Winifred. “I guess you right about it. You got money. Least you had some before you gave it to me. How you come by the money for this trip?”
    “We got almost ten dollars and we're not orphans,” said Willie.
    Winifred stared straight ahead. “I'm glad you got means. Shame to see chil-dern like you without means.”
    “Things'll pick up for us in Nazareth,” said Angel.
    “You must have a good little wad to be traveling on yer own.”
    “We don't have that much anymore. Our aunt—that is, the lady who dumped us—ran off with all our money,” said Angel. It came to her they ought not to give out particulars that were nobody's business.
    “Folks like that ought to be tied up and left for the crows,” said Winifred.
    Ida May huffed, an anxious dove's sigh that drew her sister's eye.
    “You don't look old enough to take care of two little ones,” said Winifred.
    “I'm thirteen,” Angel told her and it was true.
    “Old enough to marry, they say. I guess you'll do then.”
    “I need to go bad,” said Ida May.
    “Course you do, honey. It's been a while since I been around little ones. Best to remind me of things like that. I'll pull over and you can find you a place to go out in this field. No one around. Your sister can take you.”
    The car rolled to a stop.
    “Come with me, Ida May. Willie, you just wait here, I guess.”
    “Where are we?” Willie asked Winifred.
    “Somewhere between Camden and Chidester,” said Winifred.
    Angel, who had kept the sack full of their belongings in her arms, opened Willie's door and handed him the bag of apples and leftover bread. “Ida May, let's go. You take too long.”
    Out of all of the Welbys, Ida May always took the trophy for being the household sissy. She had grown up around outhouses, but never wanted to go into one. Many nights Angel had stood outside the sharecropper's outhouse at midnight listening to her sister sniffle and complain about odors and wild things looking to grab a-body. This field, with its prickly weeds, offered Ida May a whole new crop of complaints.
    “I hate this place. I can't go here, Angel. I want to go home,” said Ida May.
    “Ida May, you hate doin’ your business back home, too. Just go.” She opened the sack containing the money and counted the roll of bills again.
    A faint sigh lifted from the bramble. Ida May emerged as though all her self-respect had been left in the weeds.
    Angel pushed back a stock of goldenrod and let Ida May pass. When they entered the clearing, Willie waved to them from behind the car. “Miss Mock's car won't start. You all get in and I'll push it.”
    “Like you're the one with all the muscles.” Angel helped Ida May into the backseat. “Hold on to this bag.” She closed the door.
    “Sometimes this car is hard to start up if I let it set too long.” Winifred lit another cigarette. “You think your little brother can give it a push while I gun the engine?”
    Angel climbed into the front passenger seat. “Give it a go, Willie!”
    Winifred turned the key and pumped the gas pedal. Willie pushed against the rear bumper but the car didn't move. Angel opened her door and joined him at the rear bumper.
    The car made a grinding sound and then an exploding roar. Angel looked up and saw Ida May staring at them from